Larklife Tracker Annoys, Encourages: Rich Jaroslovsky

By Rich Jaroslovsky -
Jan 16, 2013

The first Lark wristband aimed to
measure and improve the quality of your sleep. Now the
company has introduced a new fitness-tracking band, called
Larklife, that aims to do the same for your waking hours too.

The last year or so has seen an explosion in this kind of
wearable technology, including the Jawbone UP, Nike (NKE) FuelBand and
just-announced Fitbit Flex. Two things distinguish the $150
Larklife, one positive, the other not so much.

The Larklife does a good job of capturing your activities
-- counting footsteps, recording how long and how well you
sleep, and the like.

The downside is the device itself: It’s awkward to use,
more complicated than it needs to be and generally downright
annoying.

The detachable Lark sensor comes with two wristbands, one
for daytime, the other for night. You don’t charge the sensor;
you charge the wristbands.

They generally need to be juiced up at least every other
day or so; in practice, you’ll likely always have one of them
plugged into the charger while you’re wearing the other.

The blue daytime band (other colors are promised later)
isn’t exactly subtle. It’s far bigger than other bands, so be
prepared for lots of questions. And because one side of it is
thicker, I had a constant problem with sweater and jacket
sleeves getting caught on it.

Fumbling Reconnection

When I tugged too hard, the sensor would pull loose from
the band, requiring some one-handed fumbling to get it
reconnected. Lark says it’s aware of the issue and is working on
design changes to assure a tighter fit.

The Larklife works with Apple (AAPL)’s iPhone via a free app.
Though the company is considering a version for Google (GOOG)’s Android
operating system, none is imminent.

Unlike the Jawbone UP, which requires users to physically
connect the band to the iPhone’s audio port, the Larklife
wirelessly transfers data from device to app. Since I leave
Bluetooth activated on my phone all the time, this was largely a
seamless process, though there’s also a way to manually force a
sync via a button on the device if you don’t routinely have
Bluetooth running.

Simple App

The Larklife app is far less involved than its competitors’
-- you won’t be logging detailed accounts of your meals, for
instance. Instead, you’ll simply note the time, and select from
a limited selection of broad food categories like “protein” or
“grain.”

One weakness of most pedometer-based devices is their
inability to determine when you’re engaged in physical
activities that don’t involve steps. But the Lark app did
successfully recognize my stints on a stationary bike as
“activity breaks.”

Mostly, though, the emphasis is on coaching and
encouragement. Throughout the day, the app would deliver little
bits of cheery information -- congratulating me on taking my
5,000th step of the day, for example -- and tips on being more
active and increasing my energy.

In the evening, I’d pop the sensor out of the rigid day
band and into the soft night one. There’s a conundrum here: You
should make the switch right before you go to bed, but prepping
Larklife for night use is such a fussy process that you won’t
want to do it when you’re too sleepy.

Sleep Settings

Once you’re done getting the sensor positioned in the band
and the device on your wrist, you have to go into the app to
tell it you’re going to sleep and press a button on the band to
make sure everything is properly synced. (The company says those
steps are not always necessary, and plans to revise the manual
to let users know.)

In the morning, you have to reverse the process. I
sometimes had difficulty getting the data to upload properly;
one morning required a half-dozen tries before the data showed
up on the iPhone.

Once it did, though, the app told me how quickly I fell
asleep, how many times I roused in the night and how long I
slept.

I also successfully used its silent-alarm feature, which
rousts you by vibrating without bothering a still-sleeping
partner.

Unlike competitors, though, it doesn’t try to determine the
optimal moment to wake you. The company says it’s found most
users don’t want to get up any earlier than they have to, even
if the science suggests they’d feel more refreshed being roused
sooner in their sleep cycle.

As a piece of consumer technology, Larklife does a decent
job on the tech. But the “consumer” part needs a lot of work.

(Rich Jaroslovsky is a Bloomberg News columnist. The
opinions expressed are his own.)